300

[SecretAgentSuperDragon]

Kinda like the 57cut in 3sec action sequence in Aeon Flux?

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

yes, dear god that hurt my poor brain

[SecretAgentSuperDragon]

If that hurt, then be glad you weren't here for the 20 Qs today. Mind-numbing 'twas.

[Pak-Man]

Ooh that's cool. If he does as good a job with Watchmen as people are saying he did with 300 (I find out in an hour and a half and counting. :^)) then maybe Moore will finally have a movie made based on one of his properties that he'll be happy with. :^)

[RandyMistie]

OK, Sarcasm, let's go!

You want to talk about relativism, and you quote Descartes... do you understand the meaning of his ideas?  I'm having a bit of a cognitive dissonance when you say "philosophy" is your thing and you mock my relativism, (philosophers are where that crap comes from!!!!).  And, yes, the Zen philosophers may have actually been smarter than you or I.  Lau Tsu of China may have been smarter than you or I.  Buddha, Gandhi, Mother Theresa, St. Francis, Cornelius Agrippa, may have all been smarter than you or I and they all spoke of relativism.  Who am I to say they were wrong?  Who am I to say they were right?  Who are you?

I champion relativism because if certain religious groups could say, "Every opinion is valid and there is no truth worth defending..." then maybe a great deal of the horror we have been experiencing over the past five years could have been avoided.  Or what is happening in Africa now and for the last 500 hundred years could have been avoided.  Or even the Battle of Thermoplyea itself!

Westerners have a terrible time with things like Buddhist detachment and Impermanence, they want to believe they "own" things and will "own" things forever.  That is a terrible illusion.  They also think they "know" things.  And most of these people are in denial about their credit card debt, LOL!

Anyways, I don't mean to be defensive and I apologize to everyone, but I just thought this would be a fun thread and then Imrahil pissed all over it and now I am defending relativism.... WTF happened here!!!!

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

You want to talk about relativism, and you quote Descartes... do you understand the meaning of his ideas?

yes completely

I'm having a bit of a cognitive dissonance when you say "philosophy" is your thing and you mock my relativism, (philosophers are where that crap comes from!!!!).

true, so is objective truth, its opposite.  not relavant.  Just because i like Phil doesn't mean i believe everything about it, nor do philosophers, if they did who could they argue with?  And the fact that many opinions are mutually exclusive might have some relevance too.

yes, the Zen philosophers may have actually been smarter than you or I.

No one said they weren't, i said how do you know?

I champion relativism because if certain religious groups could say, "Every opinion is valid and there is no truth worth defending..." then maybe a great deal of the horror we have been experiencing over the past five years could have been avoided.  Or what is happening in Africa now and for the last 500 hundred years could have been avoided.  Or even the Battle of Thermoplyea itself!

which is all very nice and all and probably very true, but it doesn't even come close to arguing the TRUTH behind the argument that truth itself is nonexistant.  Further if you take relativism to its logical end you realise you have a problem.   Clearly you believe that you are right.  as Dr. house said (eh i like the show) "I find it hard to function under the opposite assumption".  However what you believe is that i am wrong.  especially since i believe that you are wrong.  as such making a claim that both are claims are true is impossible.  regardless of how say it.  there is a possibility that both claims are wrong, but that becomes irrelevant in relativism as it states that truth IS the eye of the beholder. 

Westerners have a terrible time with things like Buddhist detachment and Impermanence, they want to believe they "own" things and will "own" things forever

neat and interesting, but a leap of logic when applied to me or how i see the world.  my views on ownership are quite different than you ones have applied their.  also they dont have much to do with truth. 

They also think they "know" things.  And most of these people are in denial about their credit card debt, LOL!

neat and again a leap.  I didn't claim i know anything, i claimed I COULD know something, again quite different. 

Anyways, I don't mean to be defensive and I apologize to everyone,

You dont got to apologize, nor do you need to defend rigorously.  We both know neither of us is likely to change each others views.  I WANT to discuss, because i like to.  I bear you no malice and dont wish you to think i do.  You believe in relativism so believe, but like Buddha believe AND expouse. 

WTF happened here!!!!

welcome to the insanity of the internet.

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

rereading my own post (chronic add makes you somtimes change subjects midsentance)  and i saw something

They also think they "know" things.  And most of these people are in denial about their credit card debt, LOL!


neat and again a leap.  I didn't claim i know anything, i claimed I COULD know something, again quite different. 

I didnt even claim that i COULD know somehting, i claimed that truth exists, wether or not its knowable is another argument entirely.

[RandyMistie]

Sarcasm, YOU are good!  That is some good debate.  I must say I was delighted by your retorts!  Really stimulating, thank you!

Yes, I do believe that truth exists, but I don't believe we will know it in this lifetime.

Again, thank you, this is excellent.  And please, keep debating me!  I know I am a moon-bat and I sometimes need some grounding otherwise I will float away!  LOL!!!

At first I thought this was thread was going to HADES!!!!  But, now I am really enjoying it!

[RandyMistie]

OH, and I LOVE "HOUSE" too!!!!!!!!  He's Sherlock Holmes in a medical context!  But Sherlock was my childhood hero, so... yeah, HOUSE rules, and stuff!

(watch--- Imrahil will come in and say HOUSE could never be a real doctor because he's on drugs and then I will be all going nuts over relativism again!!!)

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

lol usually people just call me annoying.    granted its probably more annoying in person.

Yes, I do believe that truth exists, but I don't believe we will know it in this lifetime.

then how do you decide what to beleive at all.  

see heres where the whole thing becomes obnoxious.  Language is highly imprecise.  i think thats a word.  anyways, the point is emotion screws things up, especially debate.  when someone says things like "we wont know it in this lifetime"  is that we wont have certainty.  which is where good ol' descartes came into the equation, giving us the only thing we have with certainty.  Certainty is again a different thing.  If as you say it is KNOWable, therefore how can we in this lifetime try to at least narrow the possibilities?  can some things be eliminated?  I say they can.  what say you?

And please, keep debating me!  I know I am a moon-bat and I sometimes need some grounding otherwise I will float away!

OH, and I LOVE "HOUSE" too!!!!!!!!  He's Sherlock Holmes in a medical context!  But Sherlock was my childhood hero, so... yeah, HOUSE rules, and stuff!

damn straight. sherlock rules.  I am currently watching house right this second actually lol.  I just caught a line that was a sherlock line that i had never noticed before.  He said "you hound me for opinion, then you question the diagnosis!"  something that came out of jeremy bretts mouth too lol. 

im not quite sure i know what a moon bat is.  

Ill keep debating gladly, but you should also pick away at my arguments as well.  as you DO beleive in relativism, you should tell my why i should also as well.  rationally not emotionally

[Thom_Serveaux]

Warning!!

Quote
I champion relativism because if certain religious groups could say, "Every opinion is valid and there is no truth worth defending..." then maybe a great deal of the horror we have been experiencing over the past five years could have been avoided.  Or what is happening in Africa now and for the last 500 hundred years could have been avoided.  Or even the Battle of Thermoplyea itself!

I applaud the very fact that you've actually taken the time and mental effort to construct the opinions that you hold.  That in itself is testament to your intellect, as it is sorely lacking pretty much everywhere else on the web.  While what you said in the above quote is certainly intriguing, it has, IMHO, at least one minor flaw.  While it is doubtless an oversimplification to as simply that your view is 'can't we all just get along?'  The problem is the human mind and spirit is a very complex and sometimes devious beast to quantify.  While some of the horrors in Iraq and the vicinity are due to some who are indeed fighting for their faith against others that hold differing views,  The 'truth' about their justifications is being manipulated by others who fan those flames of hate and intolerance to their own ends.  I speak of those who have risen to power by making those around them believe that their living in squalor is due to others that are evil, and their supreme being commands them to destroy said enemies.  The dirty little secret here is if the general populace were to take a good, long, hard look, they might just see the problem is not from without, but from within...

[Reductio_ad_absurdum]

There are three people who I take my knowledge from primarily: Christ, G.K. Chesterton, and Shusaku Endo.

G.K. Chesterton has already said what I believe about Buddhism and Relativism in his book, The Everlasting Man.

http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/chesterton/everlasting/part1c6.htm

Chapter 6

...And though the symbol is of course only a coincidence, it is a coincidence that really does coincide. The mind of Asia can really be represented by a round 0. if not in the sense of a cypher at least of a circle. The great Asiatic symbol of a serpent with its tail in its mouth is really a very perfect image of a certain idea of unity and recurrence that does indeed belong to the Eastern philosophies and religions. It really is a curve that in one sense includes everything, and in another sense comes to nothing. In that sense it does confess, or rather boast, that all argument is an argument in a circle. And though the figure is but a symbol, we can see how sound is the symbolic sense that produces it, the parallel symbol of the Wheel of Buddha generally called the Swastika. The cross is a thing at right angles pointing boldly in opposite directions; but the Swastika is the same thing in the very act of returning to the recurrent curve. That crooked cross is in fact a cross turning into a wheel.

*****

But Reincarnation is not really a mystical idea. It is not really a transcendental idea, or in that sense a religious idea. Mysticism conceives something transcending experience; religion seeks glimpses of a better good or a worse evil than experience can give. Reincarnation need only extend experiences in the sense of repeating them. It is no more transcendental for a man to remember what he did in Babylon before he was born than to remember what be did in Brixton before he had a knock on the head...

I implore all of you to read this man's work.

[torgosPizza]

Yeah so before I have to split / lock / remove posts from this thread

This movie kicked so much ass it's not even funny. On the IMAX screen, and with their thunderous sound system, it was even better. Definitely a movie I will be going back to see at least once more before it ends its theatrical run, and hopefully there will be an extended, extra-violent cut released on DVD when the time comes. I could've sat there for another whole hour watching people getting speared and sliced.

Awesome film, not just comic book-y but really entertaining and fairly mindless. Just what I want on a Friday night.

[RandyMistie]

There are three people who I take my knowledge from primarily: Christ, G.K. Chesterton, and Shusaku Endo.

G.K. Chesterton has already said what I believe about Buddhism and Relativism in his book, The Everlasting Man.

http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/chesterton/everlasting/part1c6.htm

Chapter 6

...And though the symbol is of course only a coincidence, it is a coincidence that really does coincide. The mind of Asia can really be represented by a round 0. if not in the sense of a cypher at least of a circle. The great Asiatic symbol of a serpent with its tail in its mouth is really a very perfect image of a certain idea of unity and recurrence that does indeed belong to the Eastern philosophies and religions. It really is a curve that in one sense includes everything, and in another sense comes to nothing. In that sense it does confess, or rather boast, that all argument is an argument in a circle. And though the figure is but a symbol, we can see how sound is the symbolic sense that produces it, the parallel symbol of the Wheel of Buddha generally called the Swastika. The cross is a thing at right angles pointing boldly in opposite directions; but the Swastika is the same thing in the very act of returning to the recurrent curve. That crooked cross is in fact a cross turning into a wheel.

*****

But Reincarnation is not really a mystical idea. It is not really a transcendental idea, or in that sense a religious idea. Mysticism conceives something transcending experience; religion seeks glimpses of a better good or a worse evil than experience can give. Reincarnation need only extend experiences in the sense of repeating them. It is no more transcendental for a man to remember what he did in Babylon before he was born than to remember what be did in Brixton before he had a knock on the head...

I implore all of you to read this man's work.

Yep!  I love his work!  Blows your hair back.  "The Universe also contains a zero"

[SecretAgentSuperDragon]

Yeah so before I have to split / lock / remove posts from this thread

This movie kicked so much ass it's not even funny. On the IMAX screen, and with their thunderous sound system, it was even better. Definitely a movie I will be going back to see at least once more before it ends its theatrical run, and hopefully there will be an extended, extra-violent cut released on DVD when the time comes. I could've sat there for another whole hour watching people getting speared and sliced.

Awesome film, not just comic book-y but really entertaining and fairly mindless. Just what I want on a Friday night.

You lucky IMAX-viewing SOB. If the stupid Pac. Science Center would only stop showing Happy Feet. WTF do I need watch cartoon penguins waddling in Hi-Def for? Gimme blood splatterings in Surround Sound!